


You Bring Me Peace

by Scrunchles



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Friendship, Kisses, M/M, Qunari, Qunlat, Slow Build, no forward movement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saemus Dumar met Ashaad on the Wounded Coast and, assuming that he didn't know the Common Tongue, started talking to him about his latest fight with his father.  Two weeks later, he's learning Qunlat and staying out past his curfew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Bring Me Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ontarom](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ontarom).



> Written in response to a request that might not have actually been a request from Ontarom on tumblr.
> 
> I may have just really needed some Ashaad/Saemus in my life.

He had imposed himself on Ashaad the first time they had met, as well as almost every day of the following several weeks.

Saemus knew that he was trespassing on a strangers time, and that it could have been rude, but Ashaad had never said or done anything to indicate that his presence had bothered him, so Saemus continued to come back when he could slip away without his father’s niotice.  He woke up every morning, made polite conversation over breakfast with his father, then, three times out of five, walked (and later, rode) to the Wounded Coast, trailing the shore until he saw a massive gray outline on the horizon.  

He always greeted Ashaad with a friendly grin, but the Qunari didn’t speak to him, or even really acknowledge him past a less-than-curious glance in the first couple of days.  It didn’t bother him at all.  Seamus was content to do all of the talking himself.  He was somehow certain that if Ashaad minded his presence, he would give some sign that Saemus should go.  Though, hopefully, it wouldn’t involve the spear strapped to his back.

Usually Saemus spoke of the Qunari’s presence in Kirkwall, or his studies in cultures around Thedas.  Other times he vented about his father’s expectations of him.  Sometimes breakfast alone with the man left him so wound up that he just sat and brooded while Ashaad worked and occasionally glanced at him, like he was expecting Saemus to break into words any minute.

Ashaad didn’t actually speak to him until almost a week of one-sided conversations had passed. Saemus had stormed onto the coast, kicking rocks and spitting vicious epithets that disgraced his position as his father’s son.  He had actually considered sending Saemus to an Orlesian Chantry for a season.  His father wanted him to spend a summer bowing piously to some nutbag who thought they were better than him because of the soil they were born on.  He was furious until he noticed Ashaad patiently sitting on a rock, listening to him with his usual stoic expression.  He felt embarrassed and deflated once he was done, surprised at himself for acting so garish in front of the Qunari he’d come to think of as a silent companion.  It was new and strange.  Ashaad had never listened to him so attentively before, just passively let him provide background noise over the tide as he worked.  There he sat, though, with his sheaf of vellum set aside and forearms resting on his knees.

Saemus had always assumed that Ashaad’s indifference meant that he didn’t know the Common Tongue, and said so before admitting that if he didn’t have him to talk to some days, he would likely explode.

That was the first time he’d heard Ashaad laugh.

Saemus studied the Qunari for a moment, really taking in that he had been duped before calling Ashaad out on it.

“So… you  _do_  understand me.”  Saemus tried not to look entirely put out.  If it had been asked of him, he wouldn’t have been entirely sure himself which part of the situation he was most disappointed about: that Ashaad knew enough of the Common Tongue to understand what he was saying, or that he had never spoken to him before.  Saemus didn’t count the few gruff words in Qunlat that Seamus came to realize meant, “move,” “I’m leaving,” and, on one occasion, “hide,” as he was shoved beneath a rocky outcropping and left to wonder just whose blood ran so freely down the slight slope of the shore.

Ashaad smiled at him, and it was strangely enigmatic for someone whose expression seemed to have been exclusively stoic up to that point.  "Not really.  This thing you have with your father is not for me to understand.“

His voice was deep, and the cadence of his words was strange, like he was still speaking Qunlat but using the words of the common tongue to do so.  It wasn’t an accent so much as an off rhythm.

“But you understand the Common Tongue.”  Saemus insisted, frowning.

“Yes,” Ashaad replied.

“And it is only after nearly a week of my prattling that you decide to acknowledge me?”  He asked, flushing to his ears with embarrassment.  Would he assume that he was ignorant?  Would the Qunari think he subscribed to the general Kirkwall consensus that the Qunari were an undesired, uncultured presence?  Savages who intruded on their otherwise not-quite-peaceful existence.

Ashaad shrugged and all of Saemus’s worries about pretenses dropped with his answer and, instead, turned a more personal affront.  "You were  _bas._ Speaking to you did not benefit the Qun.“ 

“Am I to understand you think conversing with me is pointless?”  Saemus asked, somehow unsurprised that the Qunari was so blunt.  No one had ever been blunt with him before.  It gave him a sense of familiarity that he knew was entirely misplaced.

That same smile again, with just a tinge of wry condescension.  "I did, yes.“

Saemus pursed his lips in thought before replying, "then why speak to me now?”

Ashaad considered his question carefully—far more carefully than anyone Saemus had ever known.  He could see the Qunari weighing it in his mind, considering his answer as if he might only get one chance to make his point.

“I have seen your heart.  You are no longer  _bas_  to me, but _kabethari._ A child who is not yet of the Qun, but would learn of it.”

“I am past twenty.”  Saemus replied, still mildly affronted.

“Children cling to the measure of growth.  There is not a single year where a man is made; it is up to him to seek his own maturity through mastery of himself and the will of the Qun.”

Saemus had no response.  The Qunari not only knew the Common Tongue, but was _eloquent_.

Ashaad waited patiently to see if Saemus had anything further to say before turning back to his stack of vellum and continuing to sketch the coast, a rough outline that gained detail with each stroke of coal.

Eventually, Saemus found his voice again when he realized that he had been thinking of his company only as “the Qunari.”  He sat down beside Ashaad on the rock and crossed his legs, staring out at the waves.

“My name is Saemus.”

“Call me Ashaad,  _imekari_.”

“ _Imekari_?”

Ashaad gave him that same condescending smile—almost a smirk—before saying, “it is Qunlat for ‘child.’ ”

Saemus narrowed his eyes and his elbow came up between them to nudge Ashaad’s side.  He wondered briefly if he might have crossed a line when Ashaad’s hand came up to shove his shoulder lightly.

“As I said—child.”  

The look he gave Saemus made him grin, and he shoved Ashaad back, not moving him an inch for his effort, before giving himself a proper introduction: Saemus Dumar, son of the Viscount of Kirkwall, cultural scholar extraordinaire.  Ashaad persisted in calling him Imekari.

Saemus immediately began to ask questions about the Qun as they came to him.  What is it like to live under  it? Do the Qunari have a government—well, of course they do—but what is its structure?  Is the Qun a religion or just a way of life?  Does it have a Maker?  Why is it talked about like a blanket rather than a religion?

Some of the questions, Ashaad couldn’t answer, like where the Kossith came from and why, or how they were exactly related to the Qunari.  He couldn’t explain the driving force behind the Qun—it was their way of life, like the Chant of Life guided Andrasians—they just lived it.  It laid out rules, told them how to deal with mages, it was just more complex, more rigid, but no innocent had been strapped to a pyre in order to form it.

They talked about more than the Qun and its government, though the former did permeate many of the answers Ashaad gave Saemus.   Saemus’s favorite topics were things like what everyday life was like and the Qunari’s hostilities with the Tevinter Imperium—Ashaad corrected Saemus, saying that it was not a war—they even talked about the architecture of the buildings, though Ashaad prefaced the subject by reminding Saemus that he was a soldier, not a worker.  When Saemus asked why that mattered, Ashaad had replied, “the priest doesn’t tell the soldier how to swin his sword.”

Saemus quickly came to see that the Qun was a rich source of wisdom, and that the Qunari society was not savage at all.  While he was predisposed to disbelieving anything that other people—particularly his father—told him before experiencing it himself, the constant shirtless presence of a man covered in war paint implied a certain savagery even to the most well-meaning of thinkers.  He was glad that he was right, but he had never expected that the Qunari society was quite possibly more advanced than any other in Thedas.  Everything existed for the benefit of the Qun, and the Qun in turn made sure that its followers were healthy and protected.  Each man existed as a single drop of blood to make up a whole body, some of that blood powered the heart, the brain or the hands, but it was all the same—each cell was equally important to the function of the society, the body.

It made Saemus reflect on Kirkwall and all of the reasons his father never wanted him to leave Hightown—Lowtown was dangerous and poor, but not as forgotten, rejected and angry as Darktown.  It occurred to Saemus to ask about classes among the Qunari, and ended up having to explain what he meant when Ashaad gave him a shrug and asked him to explain the strange use of the word.

Once he understood, Ashaad told him that the Qunari didn’t have castes quite like humans, though each had his or her own role within the Qun.  He was Ashaad, part of a scouting unit, a “seeker,” that was his role.  It was only in that way that they were similar.  They didn’t have slums, and the Arishok didn’t sneer down at the baker because his role was to bake bread rather than lead an army.  There was no one left without work—a Qunari’s role was their bond to society—and if they were no longer able to fulfill their role, then they were reassessed and reassigned, or reeducated.  If all else failed, and they could find no place in the Qun, they became  _viddath-bas_.  Ashaad didn’t elaborate on exactly what  _that_  meant, but Saemus could draw his own conclusion.  If Ashaad didn’t want to talk about it even with sufficient prodding, then it was scary.

It took time, but eventually Saemus had asked so many questions during their treks across the coast that he could no longer think of any more structure-oriented questions to ask.  So, he decided to attempt to learn more about Ashaad himself.  

“So, ‘one who seeks,’ where have you gone?”

“I am still here,” Ashaad told him.

"I regret allowing you to think being clever is socially acceptable.”  Saemus flicked sand at his companion idly.

“If you hadn’t, then you would have to always be silent.”  Ashaad pointed out, still focused on his map, measuring from the shore to the blood-spattered cave to their right, which some mercenary had cleaned out several days ago.

“I would take offense, but I think that was actually in my favor.  I’ll allow it.”

Ashaad snorted and made a note next to the cave.

“We’re surely almost half way to Ostwick by now, how far are you supposed to go with this map of Tal-Vashoth?”  Saemus asked after a few moments of silence.

“We are not that far from Kirkwall,” was Ashaad’s only reply.

Saemus sighed and rested his chin on his palms, elbows braced on his knees and his legs asleep from being crossed all morning.

“What?”  Ashaad asked finally, though he didn’t stop his work.

“I keep trying to talk to you, but you won’t humor me anymore,” Saemus told him.

“You had no problem talking  _at_  me for hours on end before.  Why not simply continue?”  Ashaad asked, using his little finger as a measurement once again before making a mark.

“I didn’t know you could understand me then.  I was mostly venting…  Besides, you had no problem talking to me about the Qun.  Why not yourself?”

Ashaad’s coal stilled on the page and he tilted his head, as if considering before picking up the white square he used to rub the coal off when he made a mistake.  

Saemus waited with surprising patience as Ashaad rubbed out and redrew a line.  That was the reason Saemus had only asked questions pertaining to the Qun and Qunari society.  Unless a question was directly about Qunari culture, Ashaad tended to answer in riddles or cryptic statements.  Usually, Saemus would lapse into silent contemplation until he figured out their meaning, and came to think of it as a sort of word puzzle.   _What does the Qunari mean_?  A fun game for friends and family, ages eight and up.

“Qunari do not focus on the self as much as humans do.”  When Ashaad finally spoke, his voice surprised Saemus, who was watching seagulls play tug of war with a fish.  He had forgotten that he was waiting for an answer in the first place; it had been at least five minutes

“Yes, I gathered that.” Saemus looked over at Ashaad and found himself admiring the vivid shade of his eyes, which were trained on him for a change rather than on his work.

Ashaad pursed his lips and tilted his head, like he didn’t want to elaborate on such a simple point.

“… do you feel that since the Qun focuses on the whole that you will be betraying it by talking about yourself? And to a  _bas_ , no less.”

Ashaad hummed in thought, a rumble deep in his chest, before shaking his head.  “No, it is not that,” he replied, “I just dislike talking about myself.”

Saemus chuckled and uncrossed his legs to stretch out on the sand with his arms behind his head.  Needles spiked through his sleeping limbs, but he flexed his toes within his boots and wiggled his ankles anyway.  “Well, you can’t shake me off with something cryptic about the Qun this time,” he announced, looking over at Ashaad, who was eyeing him curiously.  “Ashaad, what is your favorite color?”

“Do you realize that this line of questioning is entirely pointless?”

“Ashaad,” Saemus said, a little more firmly, “what is your favorite color.”

“ _Vashedan_ … No wonder we withdrew from the mainland.  The humans must have  _annoyed_ the  _antaam_  into retreat.”

It was the first time Ashaad had actually sounded angry at Saemus, rather than loftily unamused, but the young man just smiled and posed the question again.

“I will ignore you,” Ashaad stated and began sketching again.

Saemus grinned and fell silent for a while, occasionally teasing Ashaad with the question when he thought he might break.  The game went on until Ashaad stopped drawing for the day and packed his vellum and coal into his pack, as he did at the end of every day.  Rather than stretch his back and begin to hike back toward the inland, however, he set his pack to the side and stretched out his legs to rub his knees and contemplate the sand between them.

“I do not know the name of it.”  He finally said, as if he were talking to the sea rather than Saemus.

“Hm?  The sea?  It’s the Waking Sea.” Saemus told him mildly.

“No.  I know the sea.  I have been camped next to it for the past week and a half.”  Ashaad didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was tight.  If Ashaad were anyone else, Saemus wouldn’t have known that he had just snapped at him.

Saemus scooted a little closer to Ashaad and saw that the side of his neck was ruddy, just two shades lighter than the red viitar that streaked his throat.  “Are you embarrassed, Ashaad?” He asked gently.  “You shouldn’t be—the Common Tongue isn’t easy to learn. I don’t mind helping when you don’t know what to say.”

Ashaad remained silent for a long moment before finally looking away from the sea and fixing his intense gaze upon Saemus once again.  “It is… similar to your shirt.  Blue, but also green.  Like the still ocean.”

“That is remarkably deep of you.” Saemus joked, though he was certain Ashaad wouldn’t catch the pun.  That certainty only made it more surprising when the Qunari smiled slightly, and it just made Saemus smile wider.  “Are you smiling at the pun, or that you asked for help and the sky is still above us?” he asked good naturedly.

“Both,” Ashaad admitted. “What is the color called?  The  _antaam_  would call it blue or green and be done with it.”

“It is called, ‘teal,’ “ Saemus replied, admiring the way the silk weave of his shirt caught the afternoon light. “It was one of my mother’s favorite colors to dress me in.  She said it made my eyes look like the sea.”

“It does,” Ashaad stated, and it made Saemus flush.

“I’m sorry?”  He asked, assuming that he couldn’t possibly have heard a Qunari voicing an opinion openly.  Ignoring that it sounded like a complement altogether.

“Your shirt makes your eyes look like the sea.”  Ashaad measured his words carefully, and his expression was quizzical, as if he wasn’t sure why Saemus didn’t understand what he was saying.

“I… th-thank you?”  Saemus swallowed and grasped for a completely different topic.  “Well, now that I can get you to talk about, well,  _you_ , why don’t you tell me why you didn’t talk to me for several days?”

Ashaad smiled a little, and Saemus suddenly knew that Ashaad knew what he’d done.  Maker, this Qunari would be the end of him.

“I already told you, I did not think that you were worth the breath.”

“No, you said I was  _bas_  and that I didn’t benefit the Qun.”

“Those two statements do not differ in meaning,” Ashaad pointed out.

“You could have told me to go away.”

“I did not care if you stayed or left.”

“Maker, Qunari are very straightforward people, aren’t they?”  Saemus huffed, throwing his hands in the air.

“Yes,” Ashaad agreed.

Saemus grinned once again, and it made Ashaad roll his eyes—a gesture that he had picked up from Saemus.

“Stop smiling, Saemus. Whatever irony you think my response holds, there is none.  It is a simple fact.”  Ashaad pushed him over into the sand when Saemus began laughing at him.

The young man wiggled around until he was laying on his side, facing the sea with his palm supporting his head.  “You didn’t leave today.”  He noted, smiling at the waves, each one stopping a little higher than the last.

“I didn’t.”

“Why?” Saemus asked, eyeing a crab that broke from one small hole in the sand to another before another wave came up and briefly erased the hole from the shore.  The crab peeked back out and snatched something tiny from the sand before retreating to its new hole once again.

“Ashaad?”  Saemus craned his head to look up at his friend, and he rolled on his back so that he could return Ashaad’s gaze, far past being made uncomfortable by the unflinching amethyst stare.

“You had asked me a question. I wanted to answer it.”  Ashaad finally told him, looking a bit puzzled himself before he smoothed his expression back into his Qunari mask. “Now I find myself wanting to stay longer.  It is not yet dangerous to be so close to the water.”

Saemus grinned up at Ashaad and scrambled to sit up, brushing sand from his shirt and hands.  Ashaad’s hand came up to dust his hair clean before retreating to his lap once again.  “Thank you.”

Ashaad grunted in response.

“Then, while we’re here and you’re not sketching, will you teach me Qunlat?”  Saemus asked without having to think very long on it.

Ashaad raised a brow and let out a breathy sigh that might have been a half-hearted laugh.  “You want to learn Qunlat.”

“Yes, it’s interesting to me. Will you teach me?”  He asked, scooting closer to Ashaad until their knees touched.

“You are like a cat asking for food.”  Ashaad told him, nudging Saemus away with his elbow.

Saemus bit back the temptation to meow and perhaps act like he was going to crawl into Ashaad’s lap.  It would be taking his infatuation too far, and he knew it.  Ashaad wasn’t interested—they were friends.  Maybe.

“But you  _will_  teach me, won’t you?”  Saemus asked, shifting so that their knees  no longer touched.

Ashaad reached for his pack and brought out a clean sheet of vellum, a small writing board and an ink pot. “Come closer,  _kadan_ , and I will teach you simple pronunciations. When you master those, I will move on to simple words.”

“Simple.”  Saemus said cheekily, scooting closer to Ashaad.  He was surprised when the Qunari wrapped his arm around his shoulders, and even more surprised that he fit under it like a child.  Ashaad was able to write neatly across the page without jostling him, and Saemus carefully took the ink pot from Ashaad’s hand, though he looked like he was used to juggling all the items at once.  

Ashaad’s breath warmed the side of his neck, and his chest expanded to brush Saemus’s elbow with each inhale. He smelled like foreign herbs and subdued spices.  Saemus wondered what Qunari cuisine was like.

The silence weighed on Saemus as Ashaad wrote syllables, and he shifted closer and hazarded leaning on the Qunari as he waited for Ashaad to explain what was on the page.  When Ashaad did begin to speak, it was careful and measured, like he wanted to make sure that Saemus understood each explanation before moving on.  Even in the swathes of silence between papers, Saemus felt calm, like being so close to a race known for its lack of people skills was normal.  Recently, for him, it  _was_  normal.  However, he had never been that close before.  It was calming to be so utterly accepted by Ashaad, to recall the affection with which he said Saemus’s most recent nickname:  _kadan_.  He wondered if it was better than  _imekari_ or  _kabethari_.

The deep roll of Ashaad’s voice, and his clear certainty in each word he chose lulled Saemus when he did speak, and his instruction caused him to speak in more volume than Saemus can ever remember hearing from him in several days let alone several hours.  By the time Ashaad had rolled and tied the sheets of vellum into a tight bundle for Saemus, the sun was setting behind the Marches, and it cast their shadows into the waves lapping at their bare feet.

“Thank you for your instruction.” Saemus said politely, but it just made Ashaad laugh—a real laugh, not the huff that might be a laugh, or a snort of derision.

“So you do have manners.” Ashaad teased him as he knocked sand out of his boots before pulling them back onto his feet.

Saemus petulantly flicked sand into the leg of the boot Ashaad was pulling on, which the Qunari pushed him over into the sand for.  Saemus laughed and lay there, surprised that he didn’t want to leave at all.  The water was cold on his feet, the sand was losing its warmth, and a soft bed awaited him at home.  His stomach twisted hungrily, there was probably a warm supper kept waiting for him since the evening had taken them two hours earlier.

The Keep was warm, soft and safe, but Saemus wanted to stay there on the cooling beach and throw sand at a being near twice his weight in muscle.

“Was I too forceful?” Ashaad asked, when he had both of his boots on and hadn’t yet been accosted by Saemus again.

“No.  I was just thinking about how much I enjoy being with you.” He admitted truthfully, finally sitting up.  It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t stay out past dark.  It was annoying.

Ashaad’s mouth curved slightly, and he reached over to smooth Saemus’s hair back into its proper place. Saemus’s hand twitched to follow it out of a habit of pushing his hair back, but he refrained.  It was a surprisingly tender gesture.

“You bring me peace as well,  _kadan_.”

“How would that be said in Qunlat?”  Saemus asked, finally reaching for his boots after he tucked the roll of paper into his own bag.

“ _Aasala ashkost saam Saemus_ ,” Ashaad replied.

Saemus rolled the words over carefully in his head. When he attempted to repeat them with Ashaad’s name, he butchered much of the pronunciation with his Marcher accent.

Ashaad chuckled, but rested his hand on Saemus’s shoulder companionably.  “Try again.” He urged.

“ _Aasala… ashkost… saam_ ,” he recited with difficulty.  His tongue didn’t want to form the words correctly.

“Try,  _maaras herah_.”

“What did the first one mean literally?” Saemus asked, turning to look at Ashaad, who was so, so close.  He knew  _panahedan_  and  _vashedan_  already from Ashaad’s frequency of use.  

Ashaad thought about the translation for a moment before replying, “literally, it means: My soul seeks peace in Saemus.”

Saemus felt the back of his neck and his ears heat.  “ _Aasala.  Ashkost. Saam.  Ashaad._ ” He said, muddled with his unruly tongue, but still marginally better than before.

“ _Maaras herah_ ,” Ashaad repeated, squeezing his shoulder.

“ _Maaras herah_.”  It was much easier than the other phrase.  “What does that one mean?”  Saemus asked, heart pounding at the closeness, the intimacy of sharing language with his friend.

“Time is nothing,“ Ashaad explained.

“ _Maaras herah.”_ Saemus repeated.

“Better,” Ashaad told him, giving his shoulder one last squeeze before pulling away and standing.  “Come, I’ll walk you back to the city.  It is too late for you to be out alone.”

“I have a horse.”  Saemus reminded him, grabbing his own bag and pulling his boots back on quickly, not bothering to lace them.

“The Tal-Vashoth have been more active at night recently.”  Ashaad said, picking up his spear and offering Saemus his hand.

“Why would they do that?” Saemus asked curiously, taking Ashaad’s hand to stand before walking with him inland to where he had left his horse to graze in the scant shrubbery.

“They are likely avoiding the human  _bassvaarad_  who cleaves through their numbers.  Every time I check their camps, there are fewer left, or they are merely bodies,” he said, standing away from the horse as Saemus untethered and mounted the beast.

“ _Bassvaarad_?”  Saemus asked before clicking his tongue at his horse.  The horse fell into a rhythmic trot, and Saemus was about to slow it to a walk when he realized that Ashaad was jogging at its head, keeping an easy gait and in plain view of his horse to avoid panicking it.

Ashaad explained the  _bassvaarad_ and  _arvaarad_  to Saemus as they moved closer to Kirkwall.  Saemus urged his horse to go faster once Ashaad was done speaking, and the Qunari’s pace barely changed.  He smiled and put the horse into a gallop just to see if Ashaad could keep up.  After two miles of Ashaad keeping pace with his galloping horse, his friend fell away from his spot and Saemus heard a sickening thunk, followed by Ashaad yelling in Qunlat.  He drew up his horse short and turned to see that two Tal-Vashoth were still standing while a third lie bleeding on the rocky soil of the Wounded Coast.

“Ashaad!”

“ _Panahedan_.”  Ashaad told him mildly, barely sparing him a glance as he parried the sword of one of his adversaries with the butt of his spear and slit the throat of the second with a flick of the tip.  The parried Qunari was already moving toward Saemus and his horse.  “ _Go._ ” Ashaad barked, drawing back his spear.  “Now, Saemus!”  Saemus swallowed and turned his horse back toward Kirkwall in a canter.  He didn’t slow until his horse’s hooves rang against cobble stones, and they slipped and slid around in sideways circles before he could get his horse to calm down enough to take it to the stable.

Saemus was shaking as he dismounted his horse, and almost got back on twice to make sure that Ashaad was okay. The stable master eyed him as he hesitated just inside the door of the stables, wondering if Ashaad would follow him into Kirkwall or just return to his camp on the Wounded Coast.  Surely Ashaad was fine.  He had taken care of two Tal-Vashoth while splitting his attention between them and Saemus, after all.  The last one shouldn’t have been a problem.  Right?

Saemus’s stomach continued to turn with nerves until he saw a silhouette in the twilight too large to be a human.  He finally tossed his reins to the stable master and hurried out to greet Ashaad, surprising himself by recognizing the shape of his horns in the half-light.  

“Ashaad, are you alright?” Saemus asked, briefly clasping arms with his friend before pulling him around to face the rising moon over the Wounded Coast so that he could see Ashaad better.

“I am fine.”

“But there’s so much blood!” Saemus’s hands still shook, and he hated that Ashaad could likely feel it where his fingers gripped his massive forearms.  It was everywhere, darker than the viitar and coloring the skin where there were usually stripes or swathes of gray.

“It is not mine.  I wanted to know that you were safe in the city.”

“You’re not really going back out there, Ashaad.”

“Will you stop me?”  

Saemus could see the smirk curling Ashaad’s lips, and the amusement in his eyes, glinting black between the limited light and the shadow of his brow.  “I doubt I could.”  He admitted, releasing Ashaad’s arms and suddenly unsure what to do with himself. “I…  _Panahedan_ , Ashaad.  I will meet you tomorrow?”

Ashaad nodded his approval at Saemus’s pronunciation and reached out to smooth his hair back.  Saemus felt his shaking hands still.  

“I will meet you tomorrow,” Ashaad stated before turning to disappear back into the oncoming darkness.

Saemus felt eyes on his back, but ignored the stable master as he turned on his heel to return to the Keep. His father was probably worried.  Great.

:::::

_“You will not be leaving the Keep again, Saemus.”  Viscout Dumar’s tirade ran in the same tiring circle for the third time._

_“Father, I’m fine—“_

_“I don’t know what you are doing, but coming back so late and_ with blood on your hands _?”  He paced across the sitting room again to grab Saemus by his shoulders and examine him thoroughly, as if he might had missed an injury the first five times._

_“It’s not mine!  I told you, I witnessed a mugging and hurried back to the Keep after helping the victim. That’s why I was late.”  Saemus assured his father when he finally released him and turned to pace across the room again._

_“You should have come back immediately.”  Dumar snapped, turning once again and storming back toward Saemus’s chair.  “You should never have left Hightown.”_

_“Father,”  Saemus said firmly, trying to affect some of the command that Ashaad used when he spoke.  Certainty, resolution.  That’s the kind of man he wanted to be.  Not scared and pressured on all sides by the Chantry and the Templars.  “I am fine.  I’m going to wash and go to bed, and then I’m going to go out again tomorrow.  You cannot keep me caged here.”_

_“You think I can’t?”_

_“You’re being ridiculous!”_

Saemus rolled over on his bed and peeked beneath the door of his room again.  Two shadows, only one pair of legs now.  One guard was still there, but the second one had left and not returned half an hour ago. Saemus glanced at his window and frowned.  He was already an hour later than usual, and it would take a half hour’s ride to get to Ashaad’s next point.  He had spent the night before studying Ashaad’s Qunlat guides and attempting to write the few words he knew based on their pronunciations and the lists of syllables that he had.

Even that couldn’t occupy him enough to keep him from periodically checking the guard every ten minutes.

Even when he wasn’t checking to see if the guard had left or not, he couldn’t focus.

Ashaad had saved him again.  Saemus felt his heart swell at the thought.

He rolled over again and stared up at his ceiling.  Then he rolled onto his stomach and sighed into the thick comforter.

He heard retreating boots on the stones outside his room, and rolled off the bed to land on silent socked feet.  He grabbed his boots and satchel, already packed with food, water and his own writing utensils this time.  He eased open the door slowly and peeked out into the empty hallway.  It took roughly five minutes to walk all the way to the guards’ quarters.  There was a back door the opposite way, if he left now, he could reach the door and run to the stables undetected.  The stable master didn’t talk to anyone, so he wasn’t worried about his father finding out he was gone until the guards actually checked on him, which would likely be another hour or two.

Hopefully he would be reciting syllables with Ashaad by then.

When he arrived at the stables, the doors were closed. Saemus stared at the lock for a long time, trying to really let it sink in that his father had actually closed the entire stable just to keep him within Hightown on the off chance that he might slip past the guards and escape.  This was going to take considerably longer than he expected.

Dodging guards wasn’t hard, just time consuming.  It took Saemus twice as long to leave the city and the walk to Ashaad took thrice as long and left Saemus feeling open and exposed on the trails through the Wounded Coast.  He saw the blood stains from the night before and just kept walking. None of it was Ashaad’s he told himself.

Ashaad was sitting cross legged and empty handed when Saemus arrived, but his head snapped around as soon as the crunch of Saemus’s boots was in earshot.

“ _Shanedan_ ,” Saemus smiled and held out his arm when Ashaad stood to greet him.  

“ _Shanedan, kadan_.”  He clasped Saemus’s forearm, squeezed lightly.

Saemus wrapped his arms around Ashaad in a quick hug before admitting, “I’m glad you weren’t injured because of me.”

“If  _vashedan_  could kill me, I could hardly call myself Ashaad,” he reminded Saemus, though he didn’t complain about the contact.  Ashaad sat back down and actually took out his vellum and coal this time.

Saemus sat beside him and leaned over into his shoulder with a sigh as he began to work.

"I want to ask about Qunari families.”  Saemus said after a long stretch of silence.

“We don’t have them.”

“What do you mean?”

“We do not have mothers and fathers.  Qunari grow up in a sort of… Long room with beds.”

“Dormitory?”

Ashaad shrugged, but adapted the unfamiliar word anyway.  "The dormitories are run by the Tamasrans, who feed, teach and choose what the children will grow to do.“

"That’s… Strange.”

“No, your relationship with your father is strange.”

Saemus nudged Ashaad with his elbow and got his hair ruffled in return.  The hand dropped companionably to his shoulder, and Ashaad set his tablet to the side before stretching his sketching hand, though he’d only just begun compared to other days, where he took hours sketching the inlets, caves, trails and Tal-Vashoth spots he had observed.  "So Qunari don’t have families.  That sounds nice at the moment.“

"We don’t have them in the same sense that humans do—the closest thing we have is the sense of group, of trust and working to move forward toward a goal as one. The Qun gives the group rules and the leaders—I suppose the ‘father,’ ” the way Ashaad said the word showed how much he thought of the human concept, “in this metaphor—keep everyone on track and resolve conflict while providing guidance and support.”

“So… Qunari don’t marry, then?”  Saemus asked.

“No.”

Saemus chewed on his bottom lip and rolled sand between the tips of his fingers. “Do Qunari love, though?”

Ashaad considered the question carefully before nodding.  "If love is trust and protection, of wanting happiness for those you hold in high regard, then yes.  Qunari do love.“

Saemus’s heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.  He felt like he couldn’t breathe, but tried to keep his voice steady.  Ashaad could probably tell he was anxious from the arm around his shoulders.  "Is there… Anyone you love? Back in Par Vollen?”

Ashaad looked at Saemus strangely, though the young lord didn’t look back at him, just kept his eyes on the water separating them from Ferelden.

“I love you, if that’s what you are trying to ask.”

It took him by surprise, though he was being blatantly obvious himself, and should have been used to Ashaad’s blunt honesty.

What did people do at that point?  When someone admitted that they cared for another and it hurt to try and speak again, what happened then?

At a loss for words, Saemus leaned up and kissed Ashaad, one hand coming up to cup his cheek, then around to rest against the back of his neck. His lips pressed gently against Ashaad’s, eyes shut tight and yearning.  Three impossibly long seconds passed.  Ashaad wasn’t kissing him back; Saemus’s heart beat faster and his head whirled with confusion.  Was it a mistake?  Had he not understood Ashaad properly?  The hand still on his shoulder neither pushed him away, not pulled him closer.

Saemus made a hurt noise in his throat and began to pull back to apologize when Ashaad tilted his head slowly and leaned into the kiss, rolling his lips against Saemus’s in return.  Saemus drew in a surprised breath before hungrily sucking Ashaad’s lip between his own and relaxing back into the kiss.  He smiled as he dragged his teeth gently across Ashaad’s lip, reveling in the acceptance, the bliss of mutual want.

That was all it took to break his control.  

One strong arm gathered Saemus closer while the other moved from his shoulder to cup the nape of his neck, preventing retreat.  Ashaad’s tongue slipped into Saemus’s mouth in a rush, a rumble deep in Ashaad’s chest following in its wake.  The young man clung to Ashaad’s shoulders, allowing himself to be kissed, eager for it.  

He’d never had such an intense, demanding kiss in his entire life.

Ashaad’s lips, tongue and teeth dominated his own.  Saemus pulled himself up a little more, one arm wrapping around Ashaad’s neck and the other slipping to rest on his chest, the rough cake of viitar was a new sensation to his fingertips, and Saemus traced a line of warm, smooth gray skin along the edge of the complex pattern.  Ashaad’s arm around Saemus’s back shifted to support his weight as he laid the young man back on the sand, but remained around him, hand clutching at the fabric of his shirt possessively.  Ashaad’s other hand took a tight fist full of Saemus’s hair and pulled his head back so that when Ashaad released his mouth, he could trace his lips and tongue down Saemus’s jaw to his thundering pulse.  He sucked and nipped at the skin just past Saemus’s collar before returning to his lips, leaving the spot tingling and tender.

When Ashaad pulled away again, Saemus was breathless, his lips ached, and his stomach twisted for more when Ashaad held his hair once again, this time to prevent Saemus from following him for more.  Saemus licked his lips and opened his eyes to see the violet of Ashaad’s pinning him down, pupils dilated, skin flushed a darker gray beneath his viitar, mouth turned down in a frown.  

Saemus grinned what he hoped was roguishly and arched, straining against the firm hand in his hair, sure that Ashaad would allow him this.  Rather than pin Saemus with his body and resume kissing the life from him, Ashaad suddenly released his hair and sat back up again, leaving Saemus lying confused and wanting—pink-cheeked and staring up at the blue sky.

He felt helpless all at once.  Had he had done something wrong? He had no truly tactful way of asking about it.  He had never wished for tact before—Saemus always just spoke his mind—but this was special to him.  Ashaad was so very important.

He sat up and glanced at Ashaad, whose eyes were on the waves, his work forgotten beside him and his hands clenched, claw-like nails no doubt digging into his palms with the tautness of his knuckles.  Saemus followed Ashaad’s tense arms up to his quivering shoulders, muscles twitching with the tense energy of a bowstring pulled too tight.

“Ashaad?”  He murmured, finally.  He hadn’t intended to sound hurt.

Ashaad’s eyes closed and he hunched over, rubbing the bridge of his nose and taking several deep breaths before he was willing to look at Saemus again.  When he did, the want from before was entirely gone, replaced with the stoic mask of the silent, unresponsive Qunari that Saemus had first sat down near.

Saemus never realized how bare Ashaad was with him until the mask slipped back in place.  He didn’t like it.

“I am sorry.”  Ashaad finally said, and it sent Saemus reeling.  He was under the impression that the Qunari didn’t apologize—chiefly because every action they took was planned and deliberate.

“Maker!  Whatever for?  That was–”

“A mistake.”  Ashaad said firmly, keeping his distance when Saemus leaned closer, though he was unsure himself what he was about to do.  "Qunari do not take their friends to bed, Saemus.  The Qun demands that there is a separation, the release is meant to keep urges in check or procreate, not…“  Ashaad pursed his lips as he searched for the words.

"Bring two hearts closer?” Saemus asked softly.

Ashaad’s mask stayed in place, and he sat still as a statue while Saemus’s hands twitched and fumbled awkwardly in his lap.  He felt like Ashaad was miles away from him, rather than mere feet.

“In the  _antaam_ , training and battle are bonding enough.  Tamassrans take care of tensions so that soldiers can function without distraction.  There is no emotional component.  It is simple.”

Saemus swallowed tightly and realized just how ignorant he was.  He’d spent so much time with Ashaad, and now he’d tried to push his own human desires on him when the Qun forbade it.  He ignored that Ashaad had wanted something too.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t Saemus’s to give.

“We  _are_  still friends, though?”  Saemus finally ventured, certain that any apologies offered would just be waved off.

“Yes.”  Ashaad’s facade cracked as one of the corners of his mouth quirked.  He fixed it quickly, though.  Despite his firm expression, Ashaad stood and held out his hand to Saemus.  "Walk with me, and I will explain.“

Saemus took his hand and was surprised when the contact wasn’t immediately broken.  Ashaad held his hand for several steps before finally letting it go and rubbing the base of one of his horns as he began to speak.

"Humans rely too heavily on romantic love.  You put so much trust in your lust to tell you who to allow at your side or your back that you don’t realize love is made out of many shared experiences, not just glances, attraction, or kisses stolen behind a rock on a shore.” Ashaad’s voice was calm and reasonable as they walked.  His hand had been warm, and Saemus wondered what the Qun said about holding hands with your friends.

“Can’t it be both?”  Saemus asked, reaching for Ashaad’s hand.  He didn’t pull away, and Saemus slipped his fingers between Ashaad’s.  Warm, calloused, smudged with coal.  Saemus’s thumb rubbed against Ashaad’s, testing.  "If your love comes from those shared experiences, and then something else is there too… Why can’t that be right?“

Ashaad’s mouth turned down at the corners.  He stopped walking, pulled Saemus to him and wrapped his arms around him pressing his face to Saemus’s hair.  "What you are feeling is not  _wrong,_ Saemus.  These urges are natural, regardless of who inspires them. The Qun just demands a separation,” he repeated before pulling away and looking down at Saemus, expression full of compassion.  

Saemus stared up at Ashaad for a moment before leaning forward to rest his head on Ashaad’s chest.  Experiences building trust for those you would have beside or behind you.  He forced himself to keep his mind on the heart beating beneath his ear, and tamp down the ache of denial in his stomach. 

When Saemus didn’t say anything for a long while, Ashaad sighed and his hand came up to ruffle through the back of Saemus’s hair.  “I love you, Saemus, but I will not have sex with you.   _Asit tal-eb_.  Let it be.“

Saemus sighed, still not sure he understood.  

He pulled away to look up at his friend and had barely said, “but Ashaad, I—“ when Ashaad cut him off, barking, “ _parshaara,”_   _enough_ , as if it were a curse, and gray lips descended on his own.  Ashaad kissed him carefully that time, slow and tender, nothing like the fierce want from before.  It felt like another apology.  

Ashaad pulled away from Saemus, who stood there stiff and lifeless as a board, and hugged him once again.  Saemus suspected all the contact was for both of them, rather than just him.  "You will not understand until you have been educated, and I am not a priest,” he reminded Saemus for what seemed like the hundredth time.  It was the answer to many of his questions that began with, “why?”

“Perhaps I should be a priest.”  Saemus said, finally bringing his arms up around Ashaad.

Ashaad chuckled and rubbed Saemus’s back.  "Someday—if it is the will of the Qun.”

Saemus slowly pulled back and looked up at Ashaad.  He could still taste him on his lips.  "Can I really become Viddathari?”  He had never considered it before, but now… now it was the only thing he wanted more than Ashaad’s affection.

“The Arishok will not turn you away, if that is truly what you want,  _kadan_.”

“I don’t want to go back.  I want to stay with you.”

Ashaad gave him a sad smile and shook his head, but said, “very well.”

Saemus sat with Ashaad on the coast, moving bit by bit down until they reached his pre-determined cut off for the day’s work.  Saemus didn’t talk as much as he usually did, but rather mulled over his feelings for Ashaad.  He wondered what living in Par Vollen was like, whether they would be able to see each other still, whether Ashaad would tell the Tamassrans Saemus wanted to convert because of feelings for him—it wasn’t a decision made entirely upon the supposition that he would be able to remain at Ashaad’s side, of course. 

The Qun made sense in ways that the Chant didn’t, it was an ideal that valued those around it rather than putting forth that inherent value lay in faith, conversion or status within the Chantry.

Ashaad left him to his thoughts until several hours after mid-day, when he reminded Saemus that he needed to eat lunch.

Saemus ate his food silently, not tasting it at all.  He felt like he should be happy, he wasn’t going to go back to his father.  He wasn’t going to get to be with Ashaad like he wanted, but Ashaad still loved him, still wanted him.  Ashaad wouldn’t shove empty ideals down his throat and expect him to just parrot them for convenience sake.  If anything, he encouraged Saemus to question what he was being told, even if Ashaad couldn’t answer those questions himself, all that mattered was Saemus thinking to ask them.

_What would the Chantry think?_  Is probably the only reaction his father would have at hearing of Saemus’s conversion.  Or, more likely,  _what will Meridith say?_

Saemus scoffed and fed the last of his lunch to a seagull.

“Are you alright?”  Ashaad asked, looking up from his drawing.  

“I’m fine,” Saemus assured him, running his hands through his hair and laying back on the sand.  “Just… thinking about my father.”

“Will you miss him?”

“I might, once I forget what it’s like to be constantly under his thumb.”  Saemus shrugged up at the sky, eyes tracking the path of a flock of birds. “I would miss you far more, though.”

Ashaad didn’t reply, and Saemus glanced over to see that he was hunched over his work, but not sketching. “Ashaad?”  He asked, sitting up to see a wide grin on Ashaad’s lips, his face working to stifle it.  “Oh, Maker.” Saemus laughed and leaned on Ashaad’s shoulder.  “Have I made you happy?”

“Consistently,” Ashaad replied, wrapping his arm around Saemus and resting his cheek on his hair.

Saemus suddenly felt the rush of happiness that he was missing before, and wrapped his arms around Ashaad in return.  This was his choice.  Being with Ashaad and learning the way of the Qun, finding out just what was underneath the near-hostile despondence that the Qunari race exuded—finding that they were people beneath the veneer of religious devotion and condescension.

“I love you, Ashaad.”  He murmured, closing his eyes and reveling in the moment.

“And I you,  _kadan_.”


End file.
